Why Rain Comes From Above: Explorations in Religious Imagination Book Event
Join author Dr. Devora Steinmetz in conversation with Dr. Lynn Kaye, in celebration of the release of Dr. Steinmetz’s book Why Rain Comes From Above: Explorations in Religious Imagination. Their conversation will explore the book, and dive into the question of how imaginative engagement with religious texts and practices might transform our relationship to the world around us.
About the Book
In Why Rain Comes From Above: Explorations in Religious Imagination, Devora Steinmetz invites the reader into the imaginative space created by deep engagement with biblical and rabbinic texts. Each of these six poetic and scholarly essays leads us through a web of texts, drawing us into stories, images, and experiences that open us to new ways of thinking and to new worlds of meaning. Steinmetz’s explorations show us how imaginative engagement as a form of religious reading can transform our relationship to the world around us, awaken us to the ethical commitments to which we are called, and give us ways of thinking about our lives, our world, and God.
This event is cosponsored by Hebrew College, Lehrhaus, and the Mandel Institute.
Dr. Devora Steinmetz
Devora Steinmetz serves on the faculties of the Hebrew College and of the Mandel Institute for Nonprofit Leadership. She has taught at Drisha, Yeshivat Hadar, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and Havruta: a Beit Midrash at Hebrew University, and was the founder of Beit Rabban, a Jewish day school profiled in Daniel Pekarsky’s Vision at Work: The Theory and Practice of Beit Rabban. She is the author of scholarly articles on Talmud, Midrash, and Bible and of three books, From Father to Son: Kinship, Conflict, and Continuity in Genesis, Punishment and Freedom: The Rabbinic Construction of Criminal Law, and Why Rain Comes From Above: Explorations in Religious Imagination.
Dr. Lynn Kaye
Dr. Lynn Kaye is an Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Thought at Brandeis University. Lynn Kaye's areas of interest include Rabbinic law and narrative, philosophies of time, legal theory, and critical and literary theory. She completed graduate training in Hebrew Bible at the University of Cambridge and in Rabbinic Literature at NYU, during which time she held fellowships at Cardozo Law School and NYU Law School. She is on the editorial board of Oqimta: Studies in Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature. She has taught courses in rabbinic literature, Classical Hebrew grammar and theories of time.